


Possibly Maybe Probably

by littlemel



Category: Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:56:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3240464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemel/pseuds/littlemel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lindsey likes her risks measured, is the thing.  On her own terms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possibly Maybe Probably

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 7, 2009 for the [Jan 20 08](http://community.livejournal.com/we_are_cities/220212.html) prompt at [](http://we-are-cities.livejournal.com/profile)[**we_are_cities**](http://we-are-cities.livejournal.com/) , with huge thanks and much love to [](http://harborshore.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://harborshore.livejournal.com/)**harborshore**. Title from "Possibly Maybe" by Bjork.

Lindsey touches her knees together, digs her heel into the carpet. The hotel room is white on white on white, pale walls and paler carpet under Lindsey's pale legs, bare and smooth. The light in the bathroom is still on, the fan whirring unevenly as it tries to suck the heat and the damp from the air, but they were in the shower too long, she and Gerard, washing away their markered love notes and the smears of lipstick on his neck. Getting clean and then dirty and then clean again under the needling spray, until their fingertips raisined and it was too steam-thick to breathe.

Now she's sitting on the floor in her underwear, her back against the bed, loose-limbed and scrubbed-pink clean and ravenous. She wants pancakes and a huge glass of OJ. She wants to watch the worst thing they can find on TV and keep each other up all night. It hasn't been that long since their last hotel night, but it's always too long between beds when you're fucking in bunks and bus bathrooms and backstage.

Gerard steps over her legs and around to the other side of the bed, the mattress shifting against Lindsey's back when he sits. She hears him rifling through the mess on top of the nightstand--cigarette packs and access passes, his cell phone and hers; the strange plastic sound of the laminated room service menu and the click of the phone being lifted from the receiver, then put down again.

"Shit," Gerard mumbles. "Room service stops at midnight."

"What if," Lindsey starts, and stops. Her hairbrush snags on a knot and she tugs it through, wincing. What if. Too many ways to fill in the blank.

What if they find a 24-hour diner and talk until the sun comes up, warming the booth seats and their faces. What if they skip the food altogether and make an even bigger mess of the sheets than they did before they showered.

"What if _what_?" Gerard asks, crawling across the bed and sinking down next to her.

Lindsey leans into him and he pushes his foot under her bent knee until their legs are tangled, her calf hooked over his. He's still shower-warm, his hair curling loosely around his face, smelling of hotel shampoo. She strokes the top of his foot with her toes. For once, her legs don't look like someone took a baseball bat to them. No fresh bruises, just old scars.

She takes Gerard's hand and turns it over, palm up like an offering, and threads their fingers together. His are squarer, thicker, but somehow more delicate than her own; he touches things more carefully than she ever did.

Lindsey likes her risks measured, is the thing. On her own terms. She'll ride every roller coaster from Great Adventure to Disneyland with her eyes wide open and her arms thrown wide, she'll dive headfirst into crowd after crowd of strangers and laugh the whole way back to the stage, but this is a different kind of scary. There's no safety net here, no security.

*

A few nights ago they sat in the middle of a weedy field, Lindsey leaned back against Gerard's chest, and watched the fireflies. The moon was fat and full and bright, making their shadow a long, thin stain across the grass. Mosquitoes whined around their heads, bit at their arms and legs. Lindsey slapped and scratched and squirmed, her butt numb from sitting on the hard ground, but the last thing she wanted to do was move.

Gerard grabbed at the air and caught a firefly in his hand; when he unfolded his fingers it blinked twice before flying away, back into the night. Lindsey tipped her head back, feeling out Gerard's heartbeat, and watched the air flash yellow-green. Nothing as romantic or complicated as looking for love, she knew, just searching out a mate. Either way, it was about finding someone on the same frequency.

Lindsey's heart felt suddenly too big, her ribcage too small to hold it in. She turned her face to Gerard's neck, where he always, always smelled like Marlboros and coffee and warm skin, and breathed him in.

"Promise me something," she said. She didn't think there was anything Gerard _wouldn't_ promise her.

He nosed at her hair. "Sure."

"No, I mean." Lindsey sat up, turned halfway so she could see Gerard's face. "Promise me anything. Make something up, like that you'll never put empty milk cartons back in the fridge or whatever. Anything."

Gerard blinked owlishly and pressed his fingers into her side, gathering her up close again. "Anything," he whispered, and kissed her.

And then last night, after he walked her back to her bus; after they'd spent all afternoon wandering the grounds and all night sneaking off into shadowy corners to put their hands under each other's clothes; after they'd been saying goodnight for twenty minutes and neither of them was any closer to letting go of the other, Gerard said, _Marry me._

Just like that, as simple and sweet and surprising as that. No ring, no fanfare, just a smile against her mouth and a squeeze of her fingers. And just like that, simple and sweet and surprised, she said yes.

*

"What if what?" Gerard asks again. He grins against Lindsey's shoulder. "Hmm?"

What if they're both just lonely, and this isn't the happily-ever-after at all. What if it is.

They had a fight, about a week ago. She can't even remember what started it, only that it ended with them both yelling until she stormed off, back to her bus. He didn't call, and she didn't sleep, just stared at her bunk ceiling wondering if they were stupid to think this could ever work, if they were too much alike. When she saw Gerard the next day, he looked as worn out as she felt, like he hadn't slept either; she still hasn't figured out if he apologized because he was really sorry, or if the why even matters.

"Linds?"

She stares down at their clasped hands, almost identical with their thick veins and knobby knuckles and bitten-down nails. Sometimes, when she looks too fast, she can't tell whose is whose, where his ends and hers begins.

What if they're serious about getting married. What if it's too hard, what if it doesn't work out. What if it's easy and good, and it does.

"Just..."

She looks up and Gerard quirks an eyebrow expectantly, waiting. She thinks about the way he looked at her last night, giddy and hopeful; the way his breath hitched in after he got the words out.

What if what if what if.

Lindsey smiles. "Just what if."

"Yeah," Gerard says, nodding. He nuzzles along her shoulder to her neck, her throat, under her chin to her mouth. Lindsey giggles, curling her toes and shivering at the scratch of his cheek. "What if."

What if she told him everything in her head without saying anything, and he heard it all anyway. What if he said it all back to her the same way she didn't say it to him, and made it safe. What if the only answer is this, right here, in the smudges of ink on their skin and the way their mouths fit together, just so. What if.


End file.
